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#1
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Old hard drive, new machine
I have a number of hard drives, essentially clones.
My old machine got so intermittent that I bought a new one, and installed my old drive in it, as a 'Slave'. The BIOS looks different from the old machine, but isn't hard to understand. I'm trying to understand the logic. It boots to the Master, and I can 'see' and do copy and file operations on the Slave, but every way that I try to make it boot to the Slave, it reverts back to booting to the Master. Maybe this isn't the right group to inquire in..... but it seems to me that it should boot to the Slave, and that all the MBR and boot info is on the Slave drive. What I haven't tried is the obvious thing, namely, try the Slave drive in Master position to see if it would boot there. Having gone to the physical effort of installing the Slave drive in a new machine, I'm just reluctant to take it apart a bunch of times. |
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#2
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Old hard drive, new machine
With many newer BIOS' there is an option in the BIOS to pick which drive to
boot from. You would have to go into the BIOS and change this each time you want to boot from a different drive. If you have another installation of XP on the master drive you could also edit the boot.ini file to add a boot menu with the Windows on the slave drive as one of the options. -- Kerry MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User http://www.vistahelp.ca William B. Lurie wrote: I have a number of hard drives, essentially clones. My old machine got so intermittent that I bought a new one, and installed my old drive in it, as a 'Slave'. The BIOS looks different from the old machine, but isn't hard to understand. I'm trying to understand the logic. It boots to the Master, and I can 'see' and do copy and file operations on the Slave, but every way that I try to make it boot to the Slave, it reverts back to booting to the Master. Maybe this isn't the right group to inquire in..... but it seems to me that it should boot to the Slave, and that all the MBR and boot info is on the Slave drive. What I haven't tried is the obvious thing, namely, try the Slave drive in Master position to see if it would boot there. Having gone to the physical effort of installing the Slave drive in a new machine, I'm just reluctant to take it apart a bunch of times. |
#3
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Old hard drive, new machine
Kerry Brown wrote:
With many newer BIOS' there is an option in the BIOS to pick which drive to boot from. You would have to go into the BIOS and change this each time you want to boot from a different drive. If you have another installation of XP on the master drive you could also edit the boot.ini file to add a boot menu with the Windows on the slave drive as one of the options. Yes, Kerry, I can pick which drive to boot to, and I used to do just as you said, with my old PC. Doing the same thing with this new machine, it starts of headed for the Slave and ends up booting to the Master. If I set it to boot to the Slave, and interrupt with F8 and select Safe Mode, it starts doing the right thing (i.e., I see the full page list of files that I always see for Safe Mode), but then it goes black and starts over. And I never have more than one installation of operating systems on one physical hard drive; several drive images from various dates, but never a second OS. |
#4
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Old hard drive, new machine
If I read correctly you installed a boot drive from an old PC in your new
PC. If this is the case it is unlikely to work unless you do a repair installation of win. ie different PC specs, drivers etc "William B. Lurie" wrote in message ... Kerry Brown wrote: With many newer BIOS' there is an option in the BIOS to pick which drive to boot from. You would have to go into the BIOS and change this each time you want to boot from a different drive. If you have another installation of XP on the master drive you could also edit the boot.ini file to add a boot menu with the Windows on the slave drive as one of the options. Yes, Kerry, I can pick which drive to boot to, and I used to do just as you said, with my old PC. Doing the same thing with this new machine, it starts of headed for the Slave and ends up booting to the Master. If I set it to boot to the Slave, and interrupt with F8 and select Safe Mode, it starts doing the right thing (i.e., I see the full page list of files that I always see for Safe Mode), but then it goes black and starts over. And I never have more than one installation of operating systems on one physical hard drive; several drive images from various dates, but never a second OS. |
#5
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Old hard drive, new machine
DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't
then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm -- Kerry MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User http://www.vistahelp.ca William B. Lurie wrote: Kerry Brown wrote: With many newer BIOS' there is an option in the BIOS to pick which drive to boot from. You would have to go into the BIOS and change this each time you want to boot from a different drive. If you have another installation of XP on the master drive you could also edit the boot.ini file to add a boot menu with the Windows on the slave drive as one of the options. Yes, Kerry, I can pick which drive to boot to, and I used to do just as you said, with my old PC. Doing the same thing with this new machine, it starts of headed for the Slave and ends up booting to the Master. If I set it to boot to the Slave, and interrupt with F8 and select Safe Mode, it starts doing the right thing (i.e., I see the full page list of files that I always see for Safe Mode), but then it goes black and starts over. And I never have more than one installation of operating systems on one physical hard drive; several drive images from various dates, but never a second OS. |
#6
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Old hard drive, new machine
Kerry Brown wrote:
DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm No, I did no Repair Install. I gather that I should let it try to boot to the 'not-prepared' drive, and interrupt it along the way, to do a Repair Install. Well, I'll read that Stevens article again, but I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of doing it when I studied it before. My "Plan B" is to make a clone of the new system, and then all of the BIOS and MBR and stuff will match. As time goes on, the old back-up clones have less and less likelihood of ever being needed. |
#7
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Old hard drive, new machine
Kerry Brown wrote:
DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm Friends, Repair Install, from the document, is no option for me. It requires software that just doesn't come with an OEM OS these days. Thanks for reminding me. |
#8
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Old hard drive, new machine
Some OEMs will send you a Windows disk for a small fee. It doesn't hurt to
ask. The worst that will happen is they say no. -- Kerry MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User http://www.vistahelp.ca William B. Lurie wrote: Kerry Brown wrote: DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm Friends, Repair Install, from the document, is no option for me. It requires software that just doesn't come with an OEM OS these days. Thanks for reminding me. |
#9
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Old hard drive, new machine
Kerry Brown wrote:
Some OEMs will send you a Windows disk for a small fee. It doesn't hurt to ask. The worst that will happen is they say no. Excellent suggestion, Kerry. I'll give it a try. |
#10
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Old hard drive, new machine
Hi William
Nobody has mentioned using a boot manager in this thread... have you used anything like that before and have you considered it this time? I use XOSL. The first thing I would try is to put your old hard drive in the new machine as the only drive - see if it'll run. I've done similar things in the past and found that as long as the IDE chipset is the same (or similar enough to work with the same driver) you can get into Windows and then sort out the rest of the drivers from there. If the IDE is different, the wheels have fallen off and don't bother to look for the wheelnuts! That's more of a headache to get around than reloading from scratch. XOSL has some nice features. I run Win98 and XP Pro in separate partitions with a common partition accessible to both for data. Each "profile" can be set to hide one or more of the other partitions so that there can be no interferance. PG "William B. Lurie" wrote in message ... Kerry Brown wrote: DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm No, I did no Repair Install. I gather that I should let it try to boot to the 'not-prepared' drive, and interrupt it along the way, to do a Repair Install. Well, I'll read that Stevens article again, but I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of doing it when I studied it before. My "Plan B" is to make a clone of the new system, and then all of the BIOS and MBR and stuff will match. As time goes on, the old back-up clones have less and less likelihood of ever being needed. |
#11
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Old hard drive, new machine
Thanks, Paul. Because of peculiar new rail-screw mounting,
I'm reluctant to take it apart to run the HD all alone. And this new Compaq machine is causing me too many other headaches. As we say here in Florida, I'm up to my A** in alligators just getting all my old applications up. I've saved your advice separately and will give it serious thought when I come up above water again. Bill L. Paul Greeff wrote: Hi William Nobody has mentioned using a boot manager in this thread... have you used anything like that before and have you considered it this time? I use XOSL. The first thing I would try is to put your old hard drive in the new machine as the only drive - see if it'll run. I've done similar things in the past and found that as long as the IDE chipset is the same (or similar enough to work with the same driver) you can get into Windows and then sort out the rest of the drivers from there. If the IDE is different, the wheels have fallen off and don't bother to look for the wheelnuts! That's more of a headache to get around than reloading from scratch. XOSL has some nice features. I run Win98 and XP Pro in separate partitions with a common partition accessible to both for data. Each "profile" can be set to hide one or more of the other partitions so that there can be no interferance. PG "William B. Lurie" wrote in message ... Kerry Brown wrote: DL is right. I assumed you had already done a repair install. If you haven't then this is the problem. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm No, I did no Repair Install. I gather that I should let it try to boot to the 'not-prepared' drive, and interrupt it along the way, to do a Repair Install. Well, I'll read that Stevens article again, but I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of doing it when I studied it before. My "Plan B" is to make a clone of the new system, and then all of the BIOS and MBR and stuff will match. As time goes on, the old back-up clones have less and less likelihood of ever being needed. |
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